Double Lives

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Speaker 8 From the Creator of Homeland, Claire Danes and Matthew Rees star in the new Netflix series The Beast in Me as ruthless rivals whose shared darkness will set them on a collision course with fatal consequences.

Speaker 13 The Beast in Me is a riveting psychological cat and mouse story about guilt and justice and doubt, now playing only on Netflix.

Speaker 14 Paige, this is Carol. I just saw something on TV about you being gone since Thursday night.
I hope you're all right.

Speaker 15 Oh, my God.

Speaker 15 Oh, my God.

Speaker 15 Paige, if you get this, please, please call somebody.

Speaker 16 Everybody's worried about you.

Speaker 3 Everybody's looking for you.

Speaker 16 Please let us know you're okay.

Speaker 17 Paige was a woman with a premonition.

Speaker 19 She said she knew something bad was going to happen. A couple days later, she was missing.

Speaker 21 We found out that she had this second life.

Speaker 22 Quite obviously, it's dangerous.

Speaker 18 She'd been playing a risky game.

Speaker 21 That opened up the door to a multitude of people we needed to start looking at.

Speaker 23 He was a scam artist.

Speaker 24 Correct.

Speaker 25 He was a liar.

Speaker 17 He was manipulative.

Speaker 26 He hadn't listed the names, their grass eyes, and whether or not they would have sex.

Speaker 18 Could investigators get their man before he struck again?

Speaker 27 I turned around and he was just sitting in the dark. He said, I'm going to kill you.

Speaker 8 It's been years since she vanished.

Speaker 31 But few people in Grand Junction, Colorado have forgotten Paige Bergfeld.

Speaker 1 How could they?

Speaker 12 The story of this young mother's disappearance has long since woven itself into local lore.

Speaker 34 She's a great mother, a great friend.

Speaker 36 It's a mystery we've been following since it began.

Speaker 40 And now, as thunderheads darken the high desert sky, finally, a trial.

Speaker 19 What he told me is that he knew how to get rid of a body so that nobody could find it.

Speaker 27 He said, I'm going to kill you. And then he just slap me repeatedly.

Speaker 8 Finally, rumors and gossip would be dispelled or made fact.

Speaker 45 And the secrets...

Speaker 36 known not only by the guilty, but also the shamed, would finally be revealed.

Speaker 40 Why?

Speaker 47 So many secrets, whispers, rumors?

Speaker 11 Because in this town, where everybody knows everybody else's business, there were enough potential suspects to fill a minivan.

Speaker 51 Do you have anything to do with the disappearance of Paige Bergfeld?

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 22 I was put under psychiatric care for the first 48 hours and then sent to jail. I did not kill Paige.

Speaker 2 I mean, that's the bottom line.

Speaker 53 It was late June 2007 when news of Paige Bergfeld's disappearance first spread like the morning sun.

Speaker 13 Over the mountains in Denver, four hours away, Frank Bergfeld was driving to his office.

Speaker 56 The phone rang.

Speaker 22 Voice on the phone says, this is somebody with the Mesa County Sheriff's Office. And he said, are you Paige's dad? And I said, yep.
He said, did you know she's missing?

Speaker 57 Barbara Campbell got the call from her husband, Hans, who told her.

Speaker 19 Paige is missing.

Speaker 19 What do you mean she's missing?

Speaker 11 Andrea Land got the news in an email.

Speaker 60 It said Paige is missing in the subject line, and I knew something horrible had to have happened because it didn't make any sense that she would be missing.

Speaker 61 No way for even a best friend to prepare for such a thing.

Speaker 62 Stunningly beautiful. One of those women that was almost a little bit intimidating at first if you were, you know, your more average mom.

Speaker 40 Andrea Land and the other young mothers of Grand Junction could have been forgiven for feeling a little envy.

Speaker 40 She had the look, the money, the big house on the hill, and three attractive kids.

Speaker 49 But no, it wasn't like that at all.

Speaker 19 The way she talked, the way she acted, the way she treated you, everything about her was just so wonderful.

Speaker 53 Barbara Campbell, Andrea, and Paige were members of Grand Junction's Moms Club International, a kind of social and support group for young stay-at-home mothers.

Speaker 40 Once a year, they throw a spring fling, sort of put on prom for moms.

Speaker 29 Fancy clothes, red carpet entry, even a pretend reporter throwing fashion questions.

Speaker 45 Tell us who are you wearing?

Speaker 55 Paige was always the star, of course.

Speaker 12 And this year, the party was held at her place, which made it a very special event.

Speaker 62 Most of us did not live in a home that large. She was just so down-to-earth and humble about it that once you got over the artwork on the walls and how you know beautiful a home it was,

Speaker 62 you almost forgot that you were in this really

Speaker 63 very high-end home.

Speaker 74 So the winner is

Speaker 62 drum roll please.

Speaker 15 King's virginia!

Speaker 19 She was so comfortable hosting people that made it, it made anybody there feel comfortable. Sometimes you meet someone and you just instantly have a good feeling about them.

Speaker 19 You're going to be friends with them. It's just going to be an instant match.

Speaker 34 That's what I had with Paige.

Speaker 58 And then that call.

Speaker 43 The sheriff's deputy told the Bergfelds that after meeting a friend on the afternoon of Thursday, June 28th, 2007, Paige simply didn't come home.

Speaker 57 As they drove from Denver to Grand Junction, Paige's parents tried to understand what was happening.

Speaker 22 As we started out, I don't know that I was very tense or I thought of the worst. I guess, gee, I wonder where she is.
I hope she's.

Speaker 22 But as the drive went on, it became more and more anxious, more and more tight, more and more.

Speaker 77 And I would be calling the kids on the home phone, just saying, we're going to be there, you know, and trying to sound reassuring.

Speaker 17 The kids had just a nanny with them.

Speaker 79 because Paige had parted ways with her husband, Rob Dixon, who had since moved out of state.

Speaker 33 Still, as a single mom with three little kids, Paige had her life well in control, due in no small part to her obsessive organizational skills.

Speaker 81 She ran several small businesses and kept track of every soccer practice and dentist appointment in an old-fashioned handwritten day planner.

Speaker 22 I mean, every page was full and cross-referenced.

Speaker 77 And she was always with it. She'd come over to visit.
It came in the door right there in front of her. She was always checking it and phoning.

Speaker 4 Overbooked, divorced, three kids.

Speaker 81 First question, was there a chance Paige Bergfeld simply walked out on her life?

Speaker 60 We talked about, boy, sometimes I just want to run away. And she said, you know, I never feel that way.
I never want to run away.

Speaker 60 Even if I did want to run away just to get away from here, I would want to take my kids with me.

Speaker 83 There was no way she would leave without her children.

Speaker 84 They were her life.

Speaker 19 If she needed to hide, she would have found a way to do it

Speaker 19 with them.

Speaker 85 So, what then?

Speaker 66 What happened to Paige?

Speaker 13 Her friends, her parents, didn't know what to do or where to look.

Speaker 41 Maybe a clue could be found tucked away in her day planner.

Speaker 78 Except,

Speaker 67 it too was missing.

Speaker 57 Police piece together the hours leading up to Paige's disappearance, and one encounter grabs their attention.

Speaker 26 We found out that she had been visiting her ex-husband. Obviously, he was a person of interest.

Speaker 53 It was a Thursday, June 28th, when Paige Bergfeld of Grand Junction, Colorado, quite suddenly went off the radar, which was at least a place to start.

Speaker 36 So Mesa County Sheriff's Investigators Henry Sofel and Wayne Whaler set out to trace her steps that day.

Speaker 26 We found out that she had been at Eagle visiting her ex-husband and they had been reconciling at that point.

Speaker 26 But he, having been the last person known to have seen her, I suppose, would be a person of interest in your yes, obviously he was a person of interest.

Speaker 33 This person of interest, Rob Begler, was Paige's first ex-husband.

Speaker 10 They married right out of high school, young, immature, and soon divorced.

Speaker 90 But funny how this works.

Speaker 93 Ten years had sanded off their sharp-edged disputes, and they saw anew why they fell in love.

Speaker 94 It seemed like as if no time had passed at all.

Speaker 81 This is Ron Begler talking to a dateline producer soon after Paige's disappearance.

Speaker 20 At what point point did you start to rekindle your relationship?

Speaker 94 About six months ago. We tried to take it slow, but there was no denying that it was just as it was before.

Speaker 11 Problem was, Beigler lived in Denver, a four-hour drive east.

Speaker 57 So the two lovers would often meet at some midway point. On the day of Paige's disappearance, they chose Eagle, Colorado.

Speaker 94 We were going to have a picnic and hang out together all day. We went to Subway and brought it back to where we were sitting outside down by the river.
It was very familiar and I brought some pictures

Speaker 94 and

Speaker 94 we just sat there and relaxed and enjoyed the day and the weather. It was a special wonderful day.

Speaker 97 And then around 7 p.m.

Speaker 36 They kissed and said goodbye and drove back to their respective sides of the state.

Speaker 89 Two hours later at 8.57 p.m., Paige called Biegler.

Speaker 94 To see if I made it back into Denver.

Speaker 94 And then we had

Speaker 94 a brief conversation.

Speaker 98 Paige told Biegler she wasn't home yet.

Speaker 53 She was stuck behind a bad traffic accident in Grand Junction.

Speaker 99 And indeed, investigators confirmed there was a fatal traffic accident right here at this intersection. Somebody saw Paige's car here too that very evening.

Speaker 30 Thing is, this is five miles past her house.

Speaker 101 Why was she here?

Speaker 55 An hour later, 9.56 p.m., Paige's eight-year-old daughter, Jess, left this anxious voicemail message on her mother's cell phone.

Speaker 12 Hi, Mom, it's me. I was just wondering when you get home.

Speaker 15 Love you, guys.

Speaker 102 No response.

Speaker 29 Her daughter waited, worried, and called again. Hi, Mom.
I was just wondering what you were going to think.

Speaker 29 Oh, my God.

Speaker 43 They slept then, best they could, all three children, and awoke the next day, Friday, June 29th, to a whole new kind of anxiety.

Speaker 12 She still wasn't home. Hi, Mommy.
You said you would be back last night.

Speaker 15 You're not even back today.

Speaker 103 Bye.

Speaker 65 Something in the pit of the stomach.

Speaker 4 Paige's old and new love, Ron Begler, seemed to feel it too.

Speaker 15 Hi, where are you?

Speaker 15 Call me if you get a chance. Getting worried about you.

Speaker 82 And hour by hour, they piled up.

Speaker 49 Phone messages like a normal day.

Speaker 14 Hi, Paige. Laura just wanted me to give you a call and let you know.
Hi, this is the financial pair of service for the fans. Calling to a channel.

Speaker 15 Paige and Kevin from the farm pool. Curious if your pool cleared up.
Please, give me a call. Thank you.

Speaker 41 Not a single call was returned.

Speaker 7 And that night, again, the children with their nanny waited in vain for their mother.

Speaker 80 The following day, Saturday, June 30th, Ron Begler called the house and spoke to Paige's eight-year-old daughter, Jess.

Speaker 94 She didn't sound particularly that distraught.

Speaker 94 I don't think she had an idea of what was going on.

Speaker 92 Of course, she didn't.

Speaker 39 Biegler's next call was to 911.

Speaker 54 Ms. Masters is Clint.

Speaker 15 Yes, I needed to talk about a missing person emergency.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 105 And who is missing?

Speaker 105 Her name is Paige Dixon.

Speaker 15 How old is Paige? She's

Speaker 15 33.

Speaker 15 Oh.

Speaker 15 And she hasn't been home all night Thursday night, all day yesterday and today. Something is definitely, definitely wrong.
She either got abducted or an accident.

Speaker 53 And that's when word of Paige's disappearance began to spread across Colorado.

Speaker 10 Investigators didn't have a clue what happened to Paige,

Speaker 11 but they wondered if Biegler did.

Speaker 20 Have police questioned you?

Speaker 2 Yes, they have.

Speaker 72 And

Speaker 20 have they released you as

Speaker 20 a potential suspect?

Speaker 94 I don't know

Speaker 94 what they've done on that.

Speaker 94 I know that that was never a concern or worry of mine, having it get pinned on me.

Speaker 62 You have an alibi for that night?

Speaker 94 Just, I'm confident that the police know that I had nothing to do with it.

Speaker 20 Do you feel like you have any thoughts as to what may have happened or what's happening?

Speaker 94 I think it was a major premeditated abduction or a completely random incident. I think that it's more likely that it's a premeditated abduction.

Speaker 39 But sometimes those not asking questions find answers.

Speaker 8 It was the third day, Sunday, July 1st, 2007, 9.58 p.m.

Speaker 67 A woman driving home from work slammed on her brakes, called 911.

Speaker 100 Hey 11, this is Jesse. We're sure emergency.
Hi, I'm at the corner of 23 and Logos, and there is a car on fire in the parking lot at the building right here. There's a car on fire?

Speaker 103 Yeah.

Speaker 100 Do you see flames or smoke? Yeah, there's a lot of flames.

Speaker 88 Paige's car.

Speaker 82 What will it reveal?

Speaker 106 What was really more intense was on the driver's side.

Speaker 10 And then something else belonging to Paige.

Speaker 63 It was an awful feeling of dread thinking, how did this get here?

Speaker 75 What does it mean?

Speaker 70 Sunday night, the 1st of July, The Grand Junction Fire Department was called to an industrial parking lot.

Speaker 39 A little red car was on fire.

Speaker 8 Frank Bergfeld heard about the fire the morning after, roared over there, and could do nothing except watch from a distance as investigators crawled over his daughter's car.

Speaker 68 And that morning,

Speaker 33 Frank gave the first of what would be

Speaker 38 many, many interviews.

Speaker 22 We were hopeful when we found the car things would fall into place, and maybe they will.

Speaker 17 This interview, though, was one Frank just couldn't get through.

Speaker 22 You know, it occurred to me, I hadn't cried in a long time.

Speaker 22 I've learned how to do that.

Speaker 22 That's it.

Speaker 76 Firefighter Robert Thomason helped with the arson investigation.

Speaker 106 You can see that the glass itself was all burned out. You can see where it's still kind of intact over here.
It was really obvious to see that more intense was on the driver's side.

Speaker 106 Meaning?

Speaker 81 That's where the fire started.

Speaker 45 That's where the arsonists wanted to be sure to erase evidence.

Speaker 70 Under the car, damaged skid plates and strands of wild grass caught in the suspension, meaning somebody had driven off-road very recently.

Speaker 91 And after, dumped and torched the car in an industrial area just a quarter mile from where Paige made her last phone call.

Speaker 67 It was way beyond her house. Correct.

Speaker 26 It didn't fit for the car to be there.

Speaker 71 News of the car fire was a turning point.

Speaker 8 No longer did the public suspect this was the case of an overwhelmed runaway mom.

Speaker 12 The response was an outpouring of volunteers, a spontaneous community project to find Paige.

Speaker 109 Just seeing the dad on TV and everything like that, and I have, you know, some children of my own, and I know what I'd be feeling like if one of my children was gone, and I just wanted to try to help if I could.

Speaker 39 Paige's dad was there every day, greeting a small army of volunteers.

Speaker 87 Thanks for helping us.

Speaker 65 You know, it's just really tough,

Speaker 22 you know, for people to give up themselves to that degree.

Speaker 60 One of our moms was gone, and

Speaker 63 her kids needed her, and we needed our friend, and our kids needed to know

Speaker 60 that if someone's mom

Speaker 60 is missing,

Speaker 6 that people are going to work hard to find her.

Speaker 81 Paige's brother and his wife came from Seattle to help.

Speaker 112 The thing is, I know that somebody out there knows where she is, and you know, we're looking for clues to find that person, but there's somebody maybe who's watching this

Speaker 112 who knows where she is.

Speaker 113 But this seemed odd.

Speaker 67 Not helping to find Paige was her ex-husband and current boyfriend, Ron Biegler.

Speaker 20 Do you feel like you wish you could go there and help search for her?

Speaker 94 A part of me does, definitely.

Speaker 20 What's keeping you away from there?

Speaker 94 I don't know if I can handle

Speaker 75 being

Speaker 94 right in this situation.

Speaker 10 Then, knowing we were preparing a report about the case, Biegler made a strange request.

Speaker 94 Try to keep me out as much as possible. Like just a few words here and there, but I don't want to be on talking about things.

Speaker 67 But hundreds of people, many who'd never once met Paige, searched on horseback, on ATVs, on foot.

Speaker 53 They peered under bushes, they walked miles of desert brush in 100-degree heat, and nothing.

Speaker 29 Truth be told, Paige could have been anywhere.

Speaker 43 But then, four days after Paige's disappearance, a driver stopped along a lonely stretch of Highway 50.

Speaker 41 And as he stepped out of his truck, a piece of litter caught his eye.

Speaker 81 A blank check trapped in the roadside weeds.

Speaker 38 The name on it?

Speaker 107 Paige Dixon, Paige's married name.

Speaker 67 So then the flock of searchers descended on that road.

Speaker 63 Making my my way back west along the median, I saw a checkbook. It was an awful feeling of dread thinking, how did this get here?

Speaker 20 Why is it here?

Speaker 60 What does it mean?

Speaker 114 Then more.

Speaker 41 Paige's wallet, charm bracelet, a shoe, various cards, bank registers, and dozens of checks from both Paige's personal and professional accounts.

Speaker 93 Nearly 100 items spread along 13 miles of road, which left investigators with two very different theories.

Speaker 26 Either Paige's abductor was trying to throw them off track, or she was in the trunk of a car or something of the sort and dumped these items out to leave a trail.

Speaker 50 And while volunteers gathered the sad detritus of Paige's life, a new wrinkle.

Speaker 105 Paige's most recent ex-husband, Rob Dixon, came back to town to look after the kids and help out with the search.

Speaker 57 And his reappearance stopped volunteers in their tracks.

Speaker 99 Because of the stories Paige told while they were married, many thought him the most obvious suspect.

Speaker 60 She was afraid of him.

Speaker 8 What else Paige told loved ones about Rob Dixon?

Speaker 22 She was afraid he'd kill her.

Speaker 104 A wave of whispers spread to the speed of suspicion among the searchers looking for the missing single mother, Paige Bergfeld.

Speaker 47 The ex was in town, the most recent ex, that is, Rob Dixon, the one Paige had all the trouble with.

Speaker 81 Of course, the relationship didn't start out that way.

Speaker 4 Never does.

Speaker 22 At first, we only saw what we refer to as the good Rob side.

Speaker 77 And that's certainly what Paige only saw.

Speaker 22 And

Speaker 22 he was part of our family, and we loved him as much as

Speaker 22 an in-law would be. He was a good guy to have.

Speaker 39 Dixon had been a hard-working paramedic until his dad made a one-time fortune in the tech industry and passed that windfall on to his kids.

Speaker 40 And not long after getting his millions, Dixon met and married Paige.

Speaker 45 And they had three kids and moved into a fine big house.

Speaker 22 He had admitted to having over $10 million.

Speaker 22 And I think when you admit to that, you have maybe twice that much.

Speaker 39 And Paige's parents watched him change.

Speaker 102 The whole town saw that, actually.

Speaker 22 In his garage, I saw

Speaker 22 three Range Rovers, Jaguar, two Porsches, and then later he had a Lemon Yellow Ferrari. If you've been to Grand Junction and you want to fit in, a Lemon Yellow Ferrari is not exactly what you do.

Speaker 115 Did he make any effort to meet you or the other?

Speaker 83 The mom's club would get together. They would have occasions when all the families families would get together.
But

Speaker 83 he would never come to any of them.

Speaker 83 I never once saw him attend.

Speaker 19 I was so baffled how someone as upbeat and just eternally happy as Paige could have this grump around.

Speaker 65 But in hopes of promoting either Goodwill or himself, Dixon joined the Grand Junction Fire District Board and then donated a brand new fire truck.

Speaker 53 His generosity made news, had locals wondering if they'd they'd misjudged him, but soon it turned to dust.

Speaker 53 Dixon got himself in charge of fire district investments, put public money in what he said was a sure thing.

Speaker 9 It wasn't.

Speaker 66 The money vanished.

Speaker 116 Blue Eye, as I recall, about $750,000 in bad investments for the fire district.

Speaker 76 Peter Houtsinger was at that time the Mesa County DA.

Speaker 7 I made the decision to

Speaker 116 take that case to the grand jury, and ultimately the grand jury decided

Speaker 116 felony stupid, but not

Speaker 116 worthy of criminal charges.

Speaker 12 Then one day, a repo man showed up for that shiny new fire truck Dixon had donated.

Speaker 77 It turned out the fire truck was leased and they came and took it away from the fire department.

Speaker 5 That's when Frank and Paige and the whole town found out Dixon's money was gone too.

Speaker 77 He gave it to someone who

Speaker 77 pyramid schemed it.

Speaker 57 The missing money, the repo truck, the grand jury investigation.

Speaker 53 It all kept Dixon on the front pages of the local paper for months.

Speaker 67 A series of public humiliations ending with an exclamation point when he was embarrassingly picked newsmaker of the year.

Speaker 22 It was clear, Rob, he was a big deal because he had a lot of money. And then to lose it and be disgraced in a relatively small community.

Speaker 24 They're writing about him in the local paper.

Speaker 22 And I said, he has taken a gigantic fall and he will change dramatically for the worse.

Speaker 22 And I think that was very predictable. And I think for Rob, that's what happened.
At the end, it was almost always Bedrob that we were dealing with.

Speaker 22 She told friends, and we saw an email, she was afraid he'd kill her.

Speaker 77 He said he would kill her several times.

Speaker 10 In 2004, Paige, in the midst of this downward spiral, called 911.

Speaker 100 911, where's your emergency? My husband and I were in a fight, and he was supposed to watch my children while we get to work. And he said that I would come home and find them all murdered.

Speaker 101 Police were dispatched, but there was no arrest. But according to Paige's parents, the fighting only got worse.

Speaker 77 It was, you know, very ugly, the psychological, emotional abuse that she endured.

Speaker 6 all the time. And

Speaker 77 when I was there visiting,

Speaker 77 I saw an awful lot of it.

Speaker 43 After a second incident, Dixon was arrested on suspicion of third-degree assault.

Speaker 116 We had a

Speaker 116 misdemeanor domestic violence case against him with Paige as the victim.

Speaker 85 Dixon pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of harassment, got a deferred sentence.

Speaker 101 The entire case, though, was later thrown out.

Speaker 10 Anyway, Paige filed for divorce and Dixon for bankruptcy and moved away to Philadelphia to work as an EMT again.

Speaker 86 And Paige did what she could to keep the kids in the only home they'd ever known, that big place with the mortgage to match, close to six grand a month.

Speaker 19 She would just sit and ponder, how can a single mom with three kids make enough money to stay in the house that her husband used to support?

Speaker 12 She had no lack of ideas or ambition.

Speaker 101 She sold cooking products for a company called the Pampered Chef and slings for carrying babies.

Speaker 67 She taught dancing classes for little kids, anything to turn a buck, keeping track of it all in that big day planner of hers, the one that was almost an hour-to-hour record of her life.

Speaker 13 And even though he was now far away, she also kept an eye out for Dixon.

Speaker 83 Flat out, she was afraid of him.

Speaker 83 She was afraid of him coming back to town. She was always nervous he was going to be coming back into town.

Speaker 71 And sure enough, two years later in June 2007, the week before she vanished, Paige got a call from Dixon.

Speaker 99 Said he missed the kids, said he was moving back to Colorado.

Speaker 19 She said that

Speaker 28 she

Speaker 19 knew that Rob was coming back and that he was going to do something.

Speaker 19 And I was floored.

Speaker 19 Do something? What does do something mean?

Speaker 19 And she just said she knew something bad was going to happen. But murder did not enter my mind.
Kidnapping did not enter my mind.

Speaker 23 It was very strange to hear that.

Speaker 19 It was a staggering conversation. I mean, we were just two moms with small children faced with an unknown situation.
And

Speaker 19 a couple days later, she was missing.

Speaker 8 Inside the wreckage of Paige's burned-out car, her day planner.

Speaker 106 It still had the pages intact.

Speaker 65 Inside the planner, a shock for everyone in the case.

Speaker 5 That was stunning.

Speaker 22 Quite obviously, it's dangerous.

Speaker 43 It was a dismal clue, the trail of bits and pieces of Paige Bergfeld's life found scattered by the highway, But still no Paige, alive or dead.

Speaker 8 And now detectives had two ex-husbands to investigate.

Speaker 29 Ron Biegler, the last person known to have seen her alive, and Rob Dixon, the man she told friends she lived in fear of.

Speaker 26 Most people that she knew, friends, believed that Rob Dixon had something to do with this.

Speaker 84 So he pops right up to the top of your list. Absolutely.

Speaker 24 He and Rob Biegler both.

Speaker 33 As for hard evidence, it was very little, except for the investigator's little secret.

Speaker 44 The one bit of evidence they'd been hiding from everyone, even the Bergfelds.

Speaker 82 Something that, by pure luck, survived that car fire.

Speaker 68 Page's day planner.

Speaker 106 The melted dash had fallen down onto the floor, covering up the day planner, and so it was protected from the heat as well as from the fire because it had an upper layer on it.

Speaker 3 What sort of condition was it in?

Speaker 106 It wasn't, I mean, it was smoke damaged and it had heat damage, but it still had the pages intact.

Speaker 41 The day planner, still very readable, was full of appointments and plans and contact numbers, most mundane, routine.

Speaker 65 But, and this was strange, three key pages, June 26th through the 29th, the date surrounding Paige's disappearance, had been ripped out.

Speaker 11 And there was something else.

Speaker 93 One particular business card that just didn't belong for a company called Ladies En Confidante.

Speaker 36 An enterprise that oddly shared the same phone number with a business called Models Inc.,

Speaker 88 whose cards were found scattered along Highway 50 among Paige's personal effects, which appeared to support a strange story told by ex-husband Ron Begler that Paige had clients she would see.

Speaker 94 It was, you know, lonely, older married men buying companionship from a really intelligent woman that they wanted to spend time with.

Speaker 57 As hard as Paige tried, what with the dancing classes, the baby slings, the cooking products, she simply couldn't keep up with the bills.

Speaker 36 And so Paige, investigators learned, had taken on one more job.

Speaker 88 She started moonlighting as an escort.

Speaker 116 Finding out that Paige was running a rather high-class, high-quality sort of prostitution business was kind of stunning. I had no idea that that took place in my jurisdiction.

Speaker 116 Living in a very nice house in a nice part of town and

Speaker 116 known to a number of people that I knew. I mean, she was a soccer mom.
One of my best friends' daughter, I believe, played on the same soccer team as Paige's girl kids.

Speaker 101 So, how did Paige manage to keep her escort service a secret from everybody but clients for so long?

Speaker 29 Well, she went by the name Carrie, selling her services through a front company she ran called Models Inc., a name that implied, intentionally, that several women worked with her, when in fact it was just her.

Speaker 81 Some friends suspected, most didn't.

Speaker 62 It was very hard for me to believe that she would want to have sex with men for money.

Speaker 5 But she did.

Speaker 70 According to this investigative report, Paige would charge up to $1,000 a session.

Speaker 54 You can imagine how these revelations hit Paige's mom and dad.

Speaker 29 They just couldn't believe it.

Speaker 22 If I had known about it, I definitely would have tried to use whatever persuasion I had to turn her away from it. I mean if nothing else, quite obviously it's dangerous.

Speaker 36 So it was a shock, obviously.

Speaker 91 But they said they could understand her motives.

Speaker 12 After all, Rob Dixon's money had run out.

Speaker 28 She

Speaker 77 was doing what she had to do to keep life as normal as possible for the children.

Speaker 71 The news spread, of course.

Speaker 39 Pretty soon, most people in town knew.

Speaker 60 There were people who wrote to the paper and said horrible things: why are we spending all this time looking for a dead hooker?

Speaker 12 Dirt.

Speaker 68 Spread, said Andrea, by those who didn't even know Paige.

Speaker 6 We knew her heart.

Speaker 60 We knew who she was every day with us and with her kids.

Speaker 60 And if anything, it only put us into hyper-vigilant defend her mode and made us all want to get out there and talk about what a good person she was as much as possible.

Speaker 97 A much bigger problem, though, was that Paige's secret life made an already complicated missing person case far more difficult.

Speaker 21 We start looking at the phone that she was using for Models Inc., and you start identifying people who had the most recent contact with her. And you came across

Speaker 21 multiple people.

Speaker 14 Hello, you've reached Models Inc., Colorado's premier gentleman's service.

Speaker 5 Now,

Speaker 68 every client who contacted Paige on june 28th and there were many

Speaker 49 was a potential suspect

Speaker 102 here's just a sampling of her phone messages that day

Speaker 15 yes this is buddy i was wondering if you had any girls available this afternoon yeah please give me a call back i'm gonna go get me a little rule now jim just calling to see if uh carrie was available tonight hi this is brief i'm just wondering if anybody's still available i'm at the country inn and i was just calling to see if anybody's still available for the night yeah hello model zinc this is jim i tried calling you last night Give me a call.

Speaker 15 My name is Dave. I saw about the ad in the newspaper.

Speaker 44 Now I want to speak to one of your female escorts.

Speaker 4 What your rates are, your hours, and stuff like that.

Speaker 15 Yeah, this is John at Motel 6 room 237.

Speaker 55 So they put together a list, called it possible suspects.

Speaker 53 The two ex-husbands, now joined by six of Paige's clients.

Speaker 107 Nothing to do but check out all of them.

Speaker 76 Beginning with the last client Paige called

Speaker 33 George Coraluzzo,

Speaker 8 who, the day Paige disappeared, called her 19 times.

Speaker 54 We're thinking that's our guy.

Speaker 25 I couldn't get rid of him.

Speaker 25 And he's still haunting me.

Speaker 102 What this woman saw.

Speaker 25 It just hit me.

Speaker 33 And what she told investigators.

Speaker 77 He totally did this.

Speaker 37 Grand Junction is a modern town in every way. But lift your eyes from the humdrum, watch a setting sun fire the great monument cliffs all around.

Speaker 5 And for a moment, you're in the Old West.

Speaker 81 A mystique that clings to the place, as do the drifters attracted to such things.

Speaker 37 Young men who split their time between odd jobs and the county jail.

Speaker 11 Like, for example, George Coraluzzo, here from New Jersey and eager to hustle a buck or a woman or whatever.

Speaker 25 George Coraluzzo was a con man, a sick person.

Speaker 4 Megan Williams knew Coraluzzo because he and her then-husband had partnered in a house painting business.

Speaker 57 Knowing Coraluzzo as she did, She was not surprised by a visit she got on July 1st, 2007.

Speaker 25 Sheriffs came to our house and they said, is George Coraluzzo here? I actually thought they were there to talk about this kidnapping case.

Speaker 13 To Megan, this kidnapping case meant one six months earlier, in which Coraluzzo, allegedly, took this woman against her will on a long, scary ride across state lines.

Speaker 25 I spilled to them everything I knew up to that point.

Speaker 98 Thinking you were talking about a different crime altogether.

Speaker 67 Correct.

Speaker 10 Deputies didn't let on, but of course they were really looking into the disappearance of Paige Bergfeld three days earlier.

Speaker 17 Where was Coraluzzo that day?

Speaker 105 Well, very interesting, said Megan.

Speaker 71 He'd failed to show up for work.

Speaker 71 And later that night, he offered a truly bizarre reason why.

Speaker 25 That his family had been in an accident. And we said, what kind of accident? Oh, well, my brother and my sister-in-law and my niece and nephew were beheaded on the turnpike in New Jersey.

Speaker 25 He had to go to New Jersey. He had to solidify funeral arrangements.
He was sobbing and hands were flying. And he was just like, I don't know what I'm going to do.
And just very upset.

Speaker 25 And we believed him.

Speaker 10 As she told the detectives, Coraluzo took the first available flight back to New Jersey.

Speaker 5 And that was that.

Speaker 50 The detectives thanked her and left.

Speaker 93 Didn't mention a thing about Paige Bergfeld.

Speaker 53 And then, the very next day, Megan was watching the news on TV and saw the story about the burned-out car.

Speaker 120 Her car was found ablaze in this parking lot off 23 Road.

Speaker 25 And then I saw Paige's face come across the news. And I looked at my ex-husband, Tim, and I said, that's That's what happened.
I said, He murdered that woman. It just, it hit me.

Speaker 13 Then, of course, she had to know.

Speaker 99 Was that wild story about a decapitating accident in New Jersey just Coraluzzo's excuse to run for what he had done to get out of town?

Speaker 25 I scoured the internet and made phone calls.

Speaker 12 Scoured the internet looking for evidence of a big traffic accident.

Speaker 75 Nothing there.

Speaker 49 So, who'd you phone?

Speaker 25 I called their local Gazette newspaper. Okay.
Talked to a reporter.

Speaker 6 Nothing happened.

Speaker 25 I called the coroner. Nothing.
So newspaper, coroner, hospitals, nothing.

Speaker 44 But Megan was able to locate Coraluzzo and passed that tip on to lead investigator Beverly Gerald, who would end up playing a key role.

Speaker 4 You'll hear more about her later.

Speaker 79 Gerald caught up with Coraluzzo in New Jersey, grilled him for five hours.

Speaker 66 But Coraluzzo denied everything.

Speaker 55 More important, he was in New Jersey when Paige's car was set ablaze.

Speaker 4 So Gerald let him go.

Speaker 11 If he didn't burn the car, doesn't that let him out?

Speaker 75 No.

Speaker 24 Why not?

Speaker 25 Because his actions lead

Speaker 25 me to believe that he did something so disgusting and vile that he had to leave Grand Junction and lie about his family dying. Something happened.

Speaker 93 And there was something else, said Megan.

Speaker 25 He told multiple people that he did something so terrible that he could never take it to the grave and that he would never be forgiven. What was that? Besides murdering somebody?

Speaker 25 George was a sketchy person and he totally did this.

Speaker 8 The Coraluzzo she knew, she said, was cunning enough to have one of his pals help him. Somebody like his best friend, Jose Tevera.

Speaker 13 Detectives suspected that too.

Speaker 29 So they found Tevera, brought him in for questioning.

Speaker 4 And what do you know?

Speaker 8 He'd recently injured his arm.

Speaker 121 They had a bandage on it, and the cop asked me,

Speaker 121 what is that? You know, the detective goes, what happened there? Well, I said, I burned myself at work. He's like, well, are you good enough of a friend to burn a car down for George? You know,

Speaker 101 a startling discovery about one of Paige's clients.

Speaker 24 I thought, oh my God.

Speaker 8 Triggers a police search.

Speaker 26 He had their phone numbers processed on whether or not they would have sex.

Speaker 24 Strange, maybe, but did it mean anything?

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Speaker 49 It was a traumatic time here in Grand Junction, Colorado that summer of 2007.

Speaker 10 What with the fruitless search for the missing mother of three, loved by so many, who turned out to have secrets, and a day planner,

Speaker 8 and voicemails, and phone records that seemed to point eight different ways at once.

Speaker 81 Two ex-husbands and six clients.

Speaker 116 I don't think I've ever seen a more difficult case in my entire career.

Speaker 78 One by one, the detectives cleared their suspects or tried to.

Speaker 38 Ex-husband number one and current boyfriend Ron Biegler.

Speaker 26 We were able to determine that Mr. Biegler had been in

Speaker 26 the Denver area through cell phone records.

Speaker 10 Second husband, Rob Dixon, the one man she said she feared.

Speaker 21 We were able to cooperate with his employer that he was in the Philadelphia area at the time.

Speaker 29 And Rob Dixon's cell phone connected to a tower in Pennsylvania the night Paige disappeared.

Speaker 40 And three days later, when he left this message on Paige's phone.

Speaker 15 Paige, if you get this,

Speaker 15 please, please call somebody. I love you.
Please, please, please let us know you're okay.

Speaker 53 Still, there were caveats to Dixon and Biegler's alibis.

Speaker 26 That doesn't eliminate them as far as having some involvement and maybe paying somebody.

Speaker 33 Then there was the list of clients.

Speaker 36 Coraluzzo at the top of it, given he didn't have a solid alibi and skipped town right after her disappearance.

Speaker 116 Carluzzo was the one that was most concerning.

Speaker 8 Not to mention Coraluzzo's friend, Jose Tevera, the one with the big burn on his arm.

Speaker 121 I said, well, I said I burned myself at work.

Speaker 47 Who swore he did not help Coraluzzo by setting fire to Paige's Paige's car.

Speaker 121 I said, I don't care if Mother Teresa comes and asks me to burn a car during her asset to tell her to go to hell, you know.

Speaker 97 So they let him go, too, for the moment. The other clients?

Speaker 67 Hotzinger knew one of them very well, a prominent real estate investor named Stephen Heald.

Speaker 9 He was almost as well known in town as Rob Dixon.

Speaker 5 And like Dixon, for the wrong reasons.

Speaker 116 The first major case I handled when I came to this jurisdiction was his multi-million dollar fraud case. I mean, I'd prosecuted him and sent him to prison back in the early 90s for that.

Speaker 116 So when he came up again as a suspect in the Bergfeld matter, it was interesting.

Speaker 11 When detectives questioned him, Heald admitted he embezzled money from his company to pay for dates with Paige.

Speaker 54 But then, he claimed, Paige turned the tables on him.

Speaker 116 He made allegations that she was essentially blackmailing him, asking for extra money.

Speaker 38 What a motive.

Speaker 50 Except, Heald's wife supplied an alibi.

Speaker 86 They were home that night reading, watching TV.

Speaker 12 So Heald seemed to be in the clear, which made it all the more shocking when, after being questioned by detectives, Heald attempted suicide.

Speaker 5 That, D.A.

Speaker 52 Hutzinger assumed, was not guilt, but shame.

Speaker 116 People don't really want to have it out in public that, oh, yeah, I was patronizing a

Speaker 5 call girl.

Speaker 4 They checked out a drifter named John Livingston, who, the night Paige vanished, called her again and again from a Motel 6, desperate apparently for her attention.

Speaker 15 Yeah, this is John at Motel 6 room 237.

Speaker 66 Except there was no evidence Paige ever went to see him.

Speaker 88 But then there was another client, Lester Ralph Jones.

Speaker 54 Investigators got a tip about Jones from a friend of Paige's named Carol Linderholm.

Speaker 113 Paige had scheduled an appointment with Jones the night before she disappeared, but for some reason, didn't want to go.

Speaker 54 Asked Linder Holmes to meet Jones instead.

Speaker 34 And he was expecting her and then I think.

Speaker 31 And then you showed up at his door.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 7 I'm sure he had some expectations, right?

Speaker 40 I mean, he called the escort service.

Speaker 34 Well, he let it be known almost immediately that he wanted sex.

Speaker 117 Linda Holmes said that didn't happen.

Speaker 78 Instead, they talked for an hour or so, and then she left.

Speaker 36 A couple of days later, she said she called Paige.

Speaker 100 It's Carol, where the heck are you?

Speaker 30 Got no response.

Speaker 34 At first, I thought she was just busy, and she couldn't call back.

Speaker 34 And then, when I heard on the news that the kids actually went to the police department about it, that's when I knew something terrible had happened to her.

Speaker 115 Paige, this is Carol.

Speaker 59 Oh, I hope you're all right. I hope this isn't Rob.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 117 Linda Holm mentioned Paige's second ex-husband, Rob Dixon because she knew Paige was afraid of him.

Speaker 46 Then the next day, Linda Holm heard about Paige's car and the fire.

Speaker 34 I wanted to go over and look at it and I arrived just in time for it was put on a platform on a trailer and it was being hauled away.

Speaker 34 When it passed me, I just it just left me with this horrible feeling.

Speaker 93 As she drove away, something across the road caught her eye.

Speaker 71 It was a sign for Bob Scott RVs.

Speaker 34 Lester Jones had told me that he worked for Bob Scarp RV.

Speaker 34 And when I drove around, I saw a car in the parking lot that was the same one that was in the driveway when I walked up to Lester Jones' house.

Speaker 75 And I thought, oh my God.

Speaker 42 Right away, Carol went to the sheriff's office, told them all she knew about Lester Ralph Jones.

Speaker 92 How much credence did you give to that story?

Speaker 3 Or did you?

Speaker 13 We gave it a lot of credence.

Speaker 101 In fact, a week after Paige disappeared, they brought Jones in for questioning.

Speaker 123 Mr. Jones, I appreciate you coming down.
Okay.

Speaker 4 Jones was once chief of a rural fire department, which is where his story gets strange.

Speaker 124 And I know of Rob.

Speaker 15 Okay.

Speaker 49 Rob Dixon, Paige's ex-husband.

Speaker 123 Go down that road. What do you know?

Speaker 124 I used to be with the fire department up in Hoskis there. Okay, all right.
I met him there.

Speaker 15 Okay.

Speaker 124 That was a long time ago.

Speaker 42 And had also met Dixon's then-wife, Paige.

Speaker 124 Because she at one time had come up there.

Speaker 123 And she had come to work. The fire department, you mean?

Speaker 124 Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 17 And was taken aback, Jones claimed, when a couple of years later he went to the Models Inc.

Speaker 80 massage parlor and was greeted by Rob Dixon's ex-wife.

Speaker 123 Do you know if she recognized you?

Speaker 15 I wouldn't.

Speaker 123 Do you think she would?

Speaker 124 I wouldn't think. Okay.

Speaker 123 So it kind of made you feel uncomfortable. Yeah.
But things went okay.

Speaker 124 Yeah.

Speaker 123 And how often have you done business with them?

Speaker 124 I think

Speaker 124 twice, I think.

Speaker 36 Well, Jones answered questions downtown.

Speaker 12 Investigators scoured his house and Bob Scott RVs, where he worked.

Speaker 26 What'd you find when you searched Bob Scott's RV location?

Speaker 26 A list of names of escorts that we do in the Grand Jackson area where he had their names, phone numbers, bra size, and whether or not they would have sex. Some Viagras, also some condoms.

Speaker 10 along with wigs, a black bra,

Speaker 40 and in a locked cabinet, an old scale from Pampered Chef, one of Paige's many businesses.

Speaker 33 Creepy, certainly suspicious, but not necessarily incriminating.

Speaker 10 Besides, Jones had no reason to kill Paige, no motive, which led investigators to a new theory.

Speaker 26 I still have difficulty believing that you killed her, unless you're working for Rob Dixon.

Speaker 56 Investigators get Lester Ralph Jones on the phone for a very strange call.

Speaker 15 You asked me where I should bury the body.

Speaker 26 Which came out of nowhere.

Speaker 61 Because nobody had asked him where he buried the body. Nobody.

Speaker 61 Did you like Rob Dixon?

Speaker 4 Detectives investigating the disappearance of Paige Bergfeld had a big hunch.

Speaker 93 There just had to be some connection between Lester Ralph Jones and Paige's second husband, Rob Dixon.

Speaker 26 When did you last contact with Rob?

Speaker 70 They already knew Dixon had been looking for dirt about Paige, something he could use in family court as a way of getting custody of their kids.

Speaker 29 So, as the cops saw it, Rob Dixon had the motive, while Lester Ralph Jones had the means.

Speaker 30 So, maybe murder for hire.

Speaker 53 But, big but, they couldn't find evidence of any contact between Jones and Dixon before Paige vanished.

Speaker 5 No phone calls, no wire transfers, nothing suspicious, nothing at all, really.

Speaker 15 Jones himself, on the other hand, well, there were just too many holes in his story.

Speaker 91 For starters, No alibi the night Paige went missing.

Speaker 7 And even worse, Jones admitted that when Paige's car was set on fire, he was at Bob Scott RV's, practically across the street.

Speaker 23 You're there. By your own admission, you're there where the fires.

Speaker 22 I understand that. Tell me that.
Explain that.

Speaker 124 I can explain it to you.

Speaker 30 And guess what they found at Jones' worksite?

Speaker 53 A discarded package that once contained a prepaid track phone.

Speaker 44 the disposable kind that doesn't reveal the identity of the user.

Speaker 93 Except on the package was the phone's serial number.

Speaker 26 And from that, we were able to determine that the phone was bought at Walmart on North Avenue.

Speaker 46 So they got the security camera video.

Speaker 5 And, well, well, well, the buyer looked a lot like Lester Ralph Jones.

Speaker 17 Why was that important?

Speaker 11 Because someone using that particular track phone called Paige at Models Inc.

Speaker 53 five times the night she disappeared.

Speaker 116 If there was one thing that rose above all else, it was the video of him buying the track phone that was used to call her that evening.

Speaker 10 Except, Jones denied that was him in the video.

Speaker 61 I have you on video buying a track phone at Walmart.

Speaker 15 I didn't buy no track phone at Walmart.

Speaker 22 How do you explain the video?

Speaker 15 Oh, I don't know.

Speaker 22 There is no video.

Speaker 82 Jones was unflappable, talked for five hours.

Speaker 38 And then they had to let him go.

Speaker 8 A couple of days later, a detective called Jones to say his two cars, which had been impounded, were now free to pick up.

Speaker 81 And Jones's wife answered the phone.

Speaker 15 Hello?

Speaker 15 Yes, ma'am. Speak with Ralph, please.
Hold them, please.

Speaker 15 Hello. Mr.
Jones? Yes, sir. This is Art Smith with the Sheriff's Office.
Just calling to let you know that we have both your cars ready.

Speaker 15 Both of them, obviously, are down here at the Sheriff's Office right now. So, are you with Elaine right now?

Speaker 15 No.

Speaker 15 I'm sorry?

Speaker 15 I don't think so.

Speaker 125 Mr. Jones, I'm not following you.

Speaker 15 He asked me where I would bury a body. I'm sorry?

Speaker 15 You asked me where I could bury a body.

Speaker 26 Which came out of nowhere, which surprised us.

Speaker 61 Because nobody had asked him where he buried the body.

Speaker 26 Nobody had asked him about where he buried the body. We were calling him about his vehicle, and the day before, we never talked about burying the body.

Speaker 12 Very, very strange.

Speaker 68 And most certainly interesting.

Speaker 33 When they found out why Jones seemed so out of it, he'd just taken an overdose of sleeping pills.

Speaker 36 After leaving for his wife, what appeared to be a suicide note.

Speaker 10 My dearest love, he wrote, I've prayed all night and this morning.

Speaker 17 I've asked for his forgiveness.

Speaker 40 I want you to know how much I love you.

Speaker 76 You're the best thing that has happened to me.

Speaker 13 Please forgive me.

Speaker 70 And then he added this, tell the cops to get...

Speaker 90 I never did it, but I can't be railroaded.

Speaker 53 Jones recovered quickly, but his actions that day remained a mystery because he wasn't talking anymore to investigators.

Speaker 21 The evidence was definitely pointing toward Lester Jones, but we still had to keep an eye open on Mr. Livingston, Mr.
Heal, Mr. Coraluzzo, and remember that these are the ones we know about.

Speaker 22 Is there somebody else out there we don't even know about yet?

Speaker 81 Didn't help when lab results from Paige's car came back negative.

Speaker 29 The fire burned it clean of evidence.

Speaker 57 So the sheriff's office turned to a volunteer search dog team for help.

Speaker 93 And sure enough, the dogs appeared to hit on Jones's scent in Paige's charred car and along Highway 50, where all those items were found.

Speaker 57 And then they sniffed their way down this gravel road, the dead ends of the Gunnison River.

Speaker 29 When given Paige's scent, The dogs followed exactly the same path, along Highway 50, down the gravel road, into the Gunnison River.

Speaker 49 So was Paige's body in here somewhere?

Speaker 66 They called in divers.

Speaker 126 Basically, we'd go across the river about 100 feet. They let us out five feet.
We'd come back across the river 100 feet.

Speaker 126 And basically, just searching by field, I just got out of there, and it is pitch black at the bottom.

Speaker 49 But there just wasn't a body down there.

Speaker 17 Swept away by the river, perhaps?

Speaker 30 Anyway, the labor-intensive search of the countryside, which had been going on for two long months, now seemed rather pointless.

Speaker 12 So at summer's summer's end, the command post closed.

Speaker 127 I guess that's the only thing at this point to do because there isn't any more volunteers that are coming up and people do have to return to their own lives.

Speaker 8 But that was not an option for Paige's family.

Speaker 53 Her parents rented an apartment in town and carried on the search alone.

Speaker 22 This is my life now and I really wish I could get in a different line of work.

Speaker 50 Even offered a $15,000 reward, no questions asked.

Speaker 128 It's about 100 days and

Speaker 128 if she's out there, we need to find her and if this will help stimulate that, so be it.

Speaker 5 But

Speaker 40 no useful tips, not a one.

Speaker 103 Even though Frank stayed on at Grand Junction for a whole fruitless year.

Speaker 22 At some point you had to say, do I want to stay here doing this or is it time to go back to Denver?

Speaker 115 What was it like on the way back to Denver as you realized you were leaving for good?

Speaker 22 I would say kind of a heaviness to it.

Speaker 22 That

Speaker 22 somewhere she's back there, and I'm leaving her.

Speaker 46 But, while no one knew where Paige was, there was one woman who had an idea as to what may have happened to her.

Speaker 12 Lisa Nance, who was rather briefly married once upon a time to Lester Ralph Jones.

Speaker 5 Lisa will always remember him.

Speaker 37 The ex-wife's tale.

Speaker 27 He looked at me and he said, I'm going to kill you.

Speaker 27 My kids really liked him.

Speaker 29 No doubt about it, thought Lisa Nance.

Speaker 54 Lester Ralph Jones was a catch.

Speaker 68 Tall, strong, a firefighter, for heaven's sake.

Speaker 5 And...

Speaker 27 He was a really nice person.

Speaker 105 Really nice, huh? What do you mean by really nice?

Speaker 103 Nice house.

Speaker 27 He just seemed really nice and genuine and sweet.

Speaker 38 Well, you know how people are caught up in the blinding glare of new love.

Speaker 33 And then, in a month or two or six, disturbing things begin to occur.

Speaker 40 Unimagined traits emerge.

Speaker 88 And sometimes a nightmarish story.

Speaker 10 Like the one Lisa Nance told us about Lester Ralph Jones.

Speaker 27 I caught him, you know, watching me and stuff, you know. What do you mean? Like watching me where I was going and stuff like that.

Speaker 39 He tapped her phone, she said.

Speaker 81 He hid secret recording devices.

Speaker 27 If I talked to any of my friends or anything like that and I didn't tell him, you know, he would already know that I had talked to whoever.

Speaker 57 It just wasn't working for Lisa.

Speaker 29 She ended it.

Speaker 36 Better sooner than later, she thought, and she moved on.

Speaker 57 But of course it wasn't over.

Speaker 102 And one morning as she was driving her new boyfriend to work, a car drew up beside her car.

Speaker 48 It was him, Jones.

Speaker 27 He got up beside me and hit my car, which knocked me over into a ditch. And then he pulled up and backed up really hard and ran my car.

Speaker 27 And it caused the airbags and stuff to go off.

Speaker 97 The new boyfriend took off running, but Jones had a gun.

Speaker 27 He shot at him twice. One bullet hole went through his cab and I think the other one grazed his head.

Speaker 105 And you were going to be next?

Speaker 72 I thought.

Speaker 59 I thought that.

Speaker 23 You must have been shaking like a leaf.

Speaker 27 It was scary. I asked him to put the gun down, you know, because he had it pointed right at me.
And finally, he put it in the back seat, the back floorboard.

Speaker 27 And then, you know, I talked to him and tried to calm him down, you know.

Speaker 92 What was he saying to you?

Speaker 27 That I didn't love him anymore and I didn't want him anymore, stuff like that. And I was trying to convince him otherwise.

Speaker 42 Eventually he left.

Speaker 47 She called the police.

Speaker 45 He was arrested.

Speaker 46 But in no time, made bail.

Speaker 12 And then Lisa was at home a few weeks later.

Speaker 27 I came out of my room and I went to the kitchen and I turned around and he was just sitting on the couch. I mean, just sitting there in the dark.
My stomach just, you know,

Speaker 27 just sank. I mean, I didn't, I asked him, what on earth are you doing here? You know? And he didn't say anything.

Speaker 27 And that's when I really got scared because he just didn't look like himself and he wouldn't say anything.

Speaker 23 He had something on his mind.

Speaker 27 I think so. It seemed like it anyways.
I didn't know what it was, but he just didn't. And I wanted to get out of the house, you know, as quick as we could.

Speaker 27 I just wanted to get out in public around other people.

Speaker 104 She said what came into her head.

Speaker 107 Let's go out to dinner.

Speaker 13 And he agreed, got behind the wheels, started driving.

Speaker 29 But then she realized he wasn't going to dinner.

Speaker 40 He was headed out of town toward the mountains.

Speaker 27 I was like, where are we going? And he wouldn't say anything. He just kept rubbing the back of my head, saying it's going to be okay.

Speaker 105 Rubbing the back of your head?

Speaker 23 What sort of tone did he he have in his voice when he said that?

Speaker 27 He wasn't being loud. He wasn't yelling or anything like that.
He was just really, really quiet.

Speaker 3 It's a little creepy. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 27 And I looked at him and I said, we're not going to eat, are we? And he looked at me and he said, no.

Speaker 27 And I said, what are we going to do? And he's like, I'm going to kill you. And then he just started slapping me over and over.

Speaker 86 The moment had come for you.

Speaker 72 That's what I thought.

Speaker 27 Because all I could think about was my kids, you know, not seeing them. But I was like trying to talk to him, you know, and trying to get him to talk to me listen to me, you know.

Speaker 27 He's like, you don't love me anymore. You don't want me.
And I said, no, that's not true, you know. And he's like, well, then prove it.

Speaker 27 I said, how, you know, and he wanted me to make love to him in the car. And

Speaker 27 so I tried, you know, but there wasn't no room.

Speaker 27 So I asked him if we could just go get a room and talk, you know. And so finally he agreed to that.

Speaker 57 So what happened when you got to the got to

Speaker 59 town?

Speaker 27 We went to that motel and he pulled in there and he looked at me. He's like, you'll be waiting here when I come back.
And I said, yes. So he goes in.

Speaker 27 As soon as he went in that second door and he was out of sight, I took off. I started driving back toward town and I was going really fast, hoping that I would.

Speaker 86 I should think so.

Speaker 27 Hoping that someone would pull me over. And they did.
And finally, I told him what was happening.

Speaker 27 And then they took me back to the police station.

Speaker 12 Some officers went to the motel to arrest Jones, but...

Speaker 27 They said they couldn't find him. He wasn't there.

Speaker 5 Where was he?

Speaker 33 Lisa, still shaken, still terrified, went home.

Speaker 113 And he called.

Speaker 27 First thing he said was, where are you?

Speaker 27 And

Speaker 27 I just hung up and I called 911 and they took me to a safe house.

Speaker 24 And

Speaker 22 did they catch him?

Speaker 59 What?

Speaker 27 No, they didn't know where to look.

Speaker 42 A few days later, somebody broke into Lisa's mother's house in Oklahoma.

Speaker 27 She called me later that day and said when she was leaving work that she noticed this car was following her. And she said it was Ralph.
And she called the Sheriff's Department.

Speaker 27 And she's like, he's here. He's following me.
And they arrested him. My mom said she asked him, what was he doing? And he said, looking for your daughter.

Speaker 104 Lester Ralph Jones was convicted of assault and kidnapping and served three years.

Speaker 49 But now he was out and remarried.

Speaker 12 And by the fall of 2007, a pile of circumstantial evidence connected him to Paige Bergfeld's disappearance.

Speaker 67 Why don't you just go arrest him?

Speaker 26 My job is to gather the facts and then present it to the district attorney's office and they make that determination. You want to add? Because he had to fight that battle constantly for years.

Speaker 21 Oh, yeah, I think he hit it.

Speaker 3 He hit it right on.

Speaker 44 Meaning, they were ready to pick up Jones, but D.A.

Speaker 67 Hutzinger was not.

Speaker 88 Why didn't you decide to pull the pin on Lester Ralph Jones?

Speaker 43 He didn't have a body.

Speaker 98 And that was the defining factor. Absolutely.

Speaker 116 That was really.

Speaker 31 I mean, there are lots of nobody cases that go to trial.

Speaker 116 Not a lot of no-body cases where the victim has a double life and has been lying to her family and friends.

Speaker 116 Because of her double life, the possibility that a defense attorney could throw out there that she ran off with some rich client and is living on a beach in Brazil or something.

Speaker 57 And as the years passed, Paige's story went from the front of the paper

Speaker 40 to being filed away away on microfiche.

Speaker 3 Where was she?

Speaker 33 They were about to find out, and it would transform the case.

Speaker 116 Now we need to make a critical decision.

Speaker 31 And then, a brand new theory of what happened to Paige.

Speaker 116 I think that triggered something, and something went wrong.

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Speaker 53 Grand Junction, Colorado, has been a boom-and-bust sort of place over the years, but the great, majestic cliffs are eternal.

Speaker 43 The monument, they call this, guardian of the rugged and beautiful places that have drawn hikers and bikers and rafters for years.

Speaker 57 Like the couple trekking through the Wells Gulch on March 6, 2012.

Speaker 30 And pretty soon, Paige's dad got another one of those phone calls, this time from a local reporter.

Speaker 22 And he said, did you know they found Paige's remains this morning?

Speaker 22 And

Speaker 22 he asked if anybody could call me and I said,

Speaker 22 you're the first one.

Speaker 68 It took time, though, to be certain it was her.

Speaker 116 In a couple weeks or so, it was verified that it was, in fact, Paige's remains.

Speaker 29 She was just a few miles south of the place where all those documents were found along the roadside.

Speaker 13 So, it had to have been Paige who left that trail, said the police.

Speaker 4 A call for help or an arrow pointing to where to find her.

Speaker 36 And all that, while restrained, they found remnants of duct tape still wrapped around her jaw.

Speaker 22 And we really think the searchers were here to miss it. You know, it's like, darn, how did that happen?

Speaker 107 Probably, said the detectives.

Speaker 52 Her killer buried her five years earlier, way back in 2007 when she first disappeared.

Speaker 81 And eventually, what was left of her was unearthed by a heavy spring runoff.

Speaker 55 And so, said D.A.

Speaker 1 Houtzinger, Here we go.

Speaker 116 This is what I've been waiting for.

Speaker 116 Now we need to really put the pedal of the metal and and make a critical decision.

Speaker 70 So now, finally with a body, investigators once again attempted to fashion a murder case against one of the eight possible suspects.

Speaker 71 The two ex-husbands, Rob Dixon and Ron Begler, had what looked like solid alibis, what with both their cell phones being hundreds of miles away when Paige was kidnapped and killed.

Speaker 39 So that left the six clients.

Speaker 4 Of course, Lester Ralph Jones was at the top of the list, but George Coraluzzo remember him?

Speaker 116 Coraluzzo was the alternate suspect that gave me as the DA heartburn and

Speaker 41 concerns.

Speaker 17 That's because Coraluzzo's alibi was so hard to pin down.

Speaker 11 Multiple witnesses said he was partying that night at Jose Tevera's apartment.

Speaker 68 But what time exactly?

Speaker 66 Well, that depended on who you spoke to.

Speaker 29 But what everybody did agree was this.

Speaker 50 Coraluzzo was out of control.

Speaker 121 He was intoxicated. Like slurring his words, you know, not being able to focus.
He wouldn't have been able to,

Speaker 121 you know, murder her and then go get rid of the body.

Speaker 5 You know, he was incapable of it.

Speaker 30 Of course, Devera might have been lying to protect his friend.

Speaker 50 Detectives wanted to talk to Coraluzzo himself, but they couldn't find him.

Speaker 71 So they asked Tevera for help.

Speaker 121 They're like, well, do you know where George is? I said, George is dead.

Speaker 80 Drowned the year before while swimming in a river in New Jersey.

Speaker 101 Still, to satisfy the DA, investigators had to make a case that Coraluzzo was either guilty or innocent.

Speaker 81 But because dead men don't talk, it meant they had to slog through seven years of reports and interviews and statements.

Speaker 57 And it was two years after Paige's body was discovered.

Speaker 99 While wading through that mountain of material, an investigator stumbled on an overlooked piece of evidence that would change the whole case.

Speaker 50 It was security camera video of Coraluzzo's friends, including Tevera, at a market the night Page disappeared.

Speaker 39 Coraluzzo wasn't in the video, mind you, but the timestamp backed up the story minute by minute that Tevera had been telling the cops, suddenly lifting his credibility, and in turn helping to establish Coraluzzo's whereabouts the night Paige disappeared.

Speaker 116 That video helped to corroborate what the witness was saying. It was piecing together a timeline of where he was, where we could prove he was during the relevant window of opportunity

Speaker 116 that evening and the next day when Paige went missing.

Speaker 116 And by interviewing lots of different people who had been with Carluszo or had talked to him, we were able to painstakingly essentially alibi him.

Speaker 76 Hautzinger felt he finally had enough to take the case to a jury.

Speaker 10 And in November 2014, seven and one-half years after Paige vanished, police arrested Lester Ralph Jones for her murder.

Speaker 13 But did they know the whole story now?

Speaker 88 Oh no, they certainly did not.

Speaker 93 They didn't know where or even how Paige was killed.

Speaker 116 It would have been nice to have that additional piece of evidence or an additional puzzle piece to put into the jigsaw.

Speaker 92 Well, it'd help you tell the story, too. Exactly.
And telling the story is an important thing for a prosecutor to be able to do.

Speaker 116 It's really the entire thing. I don't have to prove motive, for example,

Speaker 116 but I usually try to anyway because the jury wants to know why did this person do this?

Speaker 92 So tell us the story.

Speaker 59 What happened, in your view?

Speaker 116 I think Lester Jones was obsessed with Paige, and she...

Speaker 116 had not enjoyed her time with him and was putting him off and I think that triggered something. That's why he got the track phone and something went wrong.
My guess is that he

Speaker 116 physically subdued her and

Speaker 116 drove her down to where her body was found, but she was conscious and had the ability to throw some of the things out the window or the trunk or whatever it was leading that trail going down to Delta, and that she was ultimately killed wherever, not far from where her body was found.

Speaker 12 But the defense had its own compelling story to tell.

Speaker 113 Or rather, stories.

Speaker 33 A separate tale for each of those alternate suspects.

Speaker 53 Waste of time?

Speaker 75 Well,

Speaker 38 maybe not.

Speaker 53 Remember, it takes just one juror with reasonable doubt to throw a whole case into...

Speaker 113 Well, you'll see.

Speaker 12 At trial, the defense goes hard at the original lead detective in the case.

Speaker 131 Did you actually receive an official reprimand for the poor quality of work you did in this case.

Speaker 117 Maybe the case against Jones never stood a chance.

Speaker 132 If you're doing shoddy work in the beginning, your investigation becomes sick.

Speaker 95 It's almost impossible to make it well again.

Speaker 50 In a town with zero degrees of separation, Paige Bergfeld's disappearance and murder impacted many here.

Speaker 41 If they didn't know Paige personally, then they were in on the search or were a potential witness or knew somebody who was

Speaker 5 or in the worst case knew one of the possible suspects.

Speaker 46 So when the trial finally got underway,

Speaker 57 the town's attention was very much focused on this courtroom.

Speaker 125 We're on the record in 14th here, 1432, Mr.

Speaker 41 Jones.

Speaker 64 But the trouble began before a single witness could be called.

Speaker 10 Ron Biegler was angry, wound up.

Speaker 12 The new district attorney, Dan Rubinstein, was set to call Paige's first husband.

Speaker 13 He was a key witness, but was afraid he might actually attack Jones in the courtroom because Beegler had actually threatened to kill him.

Speaker 110 And indicated that he wanted Mr. Jones to be found not guilty so that he could kill him and feed him his genitals, although he used a different word than that.

Speaker 105 Proceedings ground to a sudden halt.

Speaker 3 Begler was hauled before the judge.

Speaker 133 If you have any outbursts or you do anything in an attempt to harm anybody in the courtroom, that that will result in serious consequences.

Speaker 94 Sarcasm may be taken out of context.

Speaker 48 Chasing, but still insisting it was all a misunderstanding.

Speaker 57 Biegler took the stand and testified about his last day with Paige.

Speaker 125 Talked about me moving into her house under injunction. We talked about her quitting that business.

Speaker 57 Which business?

Speaker 125 The adult entertainment business.

Speaker 51 Did you give her reasons why you wanted her to quit?

Speaker 110 What were the reasons you said?

Speaker 125 Because she could get killed, for one.

Speaker 64 The jury heard about it all.

Speaker 88 The date planner, items along the roadside, the bits of paper left along the highway, the search dogs who scented on Jones, the track phone Jones bought, then lied about, and the apparent suicide note he'd left for his wife.

Speaker 93 And the jury heard that strange call Jones had with the deputy.

Speaker 15 And Jones said, said, Yes, sweetheart, I remember money.

Speaker 5 Lisa Nance told the jury the harrowing tale of the night Jones took her into the mountains.

Speaker 27 And he looked at me, he said, I'm going to kill you.

Speaker 101 And there was this.

Speaker 84 Hi, Mom, it's me. I was just wondering when you get home.

Speaker 46 The prosecution played the fearful phone messages Paige's then eight-year-old daughter, Jess, left on her mother's cell phone.

Speaker 15 Love you, die.

Speaker 99 And here was Jess today.

Speaker 12 Now a senior in high school,

Speaker 57 but still able to give a child's perspective of a very loving mother.

Speaker 119 She was pretty much a typical soccer mom.

Speaker 119 We did everything with her. We all slept in the same bed with her, and

Speaker 119 we always went shopping together, and she took us to all of our soccer games and to school, and

Speaker 119 she provided us with everything that we needed.

Speaker 119 whatever that may have been.

Speaker 33 A procession of witnesses that that lasted for weeks.

Speaker 7 And the defense team's response?

Speaker 93 That this was all so much show to distract from a shoddy investigation that focused on Jones from the start, despite the lack of any physical evidence.

Speaker 133 Do you solemnly swear?

Speaker 84 And they drove that theory home by boldly calling

Speaker 57 former lead investigator Beverly Gerrell.

Speaker 64 Remember her?

Speaker 57 She was in charge of the investigation and all those detectives from the beginning.

Speaker 10 Good afternoon.

Speaker 43 Yet was never called to testify for the prosecution.

Speaker 10 Perhaps for good reason.

Speaker 131 Would you agree, Investigator Gerald, that you made some mistakes in this investigation? Uh, yes.

Speaker 58 Okay.

Speaker 131 Has it come to your attention that you did, in fact, forget to book in a few reportings into evidence for this case?

Speaker 27 Yes.

Speaker 84 Gerald admitted reports had gone unwritten, and evidence was actually lost, like Jose Tevera's first police interview.

Speaker 131 And did you actually receive an official reprimand for the poor quality of work you did in this case?

Speaker 72 I don't remember that.

Speaker 131 You don't remember getting a major disciplinary action because you kept evidence from this case in your office?

Speaker 72 In writing? No.

Speaker 53 Daryl said her memory's been fuzzy since a 2010 horse riding accident.

Speaker 49 Something that happened three years after the slip-ups on the Bergfeld case.

Speaker 10 Then came the alternate suspect, the guy who called Paige from that Motel 6.

Speaker 131 And in that storage unit you had numerous guns, right?

Speaker 58 I did have.

Speaker 13 This former client, who allegedly discussed killing Paige.

Speaker 131 Did you tell Ms. Whelan that you had killed Ms.
Birdfeld by putting Ms. Birdfeld through a wood chip?

Speaker 22 No, ma'am. Somebody said something about did you do this to Paige or did you murder Paige?

Speaker 22 And I said, just out of context,

Speaker 22 had I,

Speaker 22 they wouldn't find her because I'd used a wood chipper, and it was totally out of context.

Speaker 40 The client who admitted embezzling his company's money to pay Paige.

Speaker 131 Did you kill Miss Brickfell? No. Are you responsible for her disappearance?

Speaker 22 Absolutely not.

Speaker 79 And then the defense went after Jose Tevera, who admitted he was so tight with Coraluzzo, he would have done just about anything for his friend.

Speaker 131 Including burning the car to help him if he needed that done.

Speaker 58 I wouldn't do that. You wouldn't do that.

Speaker 131 No, I wouldn't. That's the one thing you wouldn't do.
Yeah.

Speaker 113 Megan Williams told the jury she was sure the killer was really Coral Luzzo.

Speaker 25 He was a pathological liar, and anything that came out of his mouth was a lie, and any story that he made up was made up.

Speaker 10 So many suspects, said the defense.

Speaker 40 And they put on a retired detective to accuse the police of tunnel vision.

Speaker 132 Because if you're doing shoddy work in the beginning and you're not paying attention to all the details and all of the information and vetting all of the leads, your investigation becomes sick.

Speaker 95 It's almost impossible to make it well again

Speaker 7 as for forensic evidence said the defense forget about it they called an expert to say there is no way a dog can follow a month-old scent my opinion is is that's not possible if true that meant there was no proof jones had ever been in page's car or along the highway where her belongings were found by the end of the six-week trial The jury had heard from more than 100 witnesses testifying about a nine-year investigation involving multiple suspects.

Speaker 53 So it wasn't surprising during deliberations, the jury came back with one question after the other.

Speaker 81 Prosecutor Dan Rubenstein.

Speaker 96 I started to get worried, and the question popped into my mind, is it possible to ever convince 12 people beyond a reasonable doubt unanimously as to an answer on this case?

Speaker 96 And I started to worry about that.

Speaker 99 Please rise for our jury.

Speaker 133 On day three, the judge called the jury into his courtroom to ask, is there a likelihood of progress towards a unanimous verdict?

Speaker 89 After getting this far, was the prosecution's case coming undone.

Speaker 89 Jurors speaking out, saying the case went wrong from the start with the original lead detective.

Speaker 108 She just boggled me when she was just, I don't remember, I don't know.

Speaker 111 And you're a lead investigator.

Speaker 37 And then Paige's parents' emotional reaction.

Speaker 22 I would tell you, that was a hard part.

Speaker 77 That was the hardest for me.

Speaker 12 By day three of deliberations, the jury sent word to the judge they were deadlocked.

Speaker 133 Is there a likelihood of progress towards a unanimous verdict?

Speaker 72 No.

Speaker 2 No?

Speaker 133 All right, thank you.

Speaker 47 The judge ordered them back to deliberate further.

Speaker 8 But now, of course, there was concern.

Speaker 51 So they will make another effort, considering each other's opinions further. And if they're unable to reach a verdict, we'll declare a mistrial and reset the trial.

Speaker 12 Less than two hours later, another message from the jury.

Speaker 133 It states as follows: the jury remains in the same position, period. We are not unanimous in our decision, period.
We do not feel any further discussion will change our current state, period.

Speaker 5 And that was it.

Speaker 10 The judge had no option but to declare a mistrial.

Speaker 118 Minutes later, Paige's dad Frank tried to keep it positive.

Speaker 22 Listen, if we hadn't had a trial, that would have been a problem.

Speaker 22 This was a massive effort. It was well done.

Speaker 22 I am grateful they gave us a shot at it.

Speaker 53 But like so many times in the past, Frank's facade cracked just a bit.

Speaker 10 and the pain slipped through.

Speaker 22 At the end, they showed a nice picture of Paige.

Speaker 28 About all kind of came down.

Speaker 111 In my heart, I believed he was guilty.

Speaker 71 A handful of jurors spoke to us afterwards to explain how the trial played out for them.

Speaker 49 This man, William Sullivan, voted guilty.

Speaker 105 Just because of the evidence.

Speaker 3 You know, nobody has that bad of luck in one week.

Speaker 8 And this man, Judge Swihart, was disturbed by lead investigator Beverly Gerald's testimony.

Speaker 55 She just

Speaker 108 boggled me when she was on the stand and just, I don't remember, I don't know, whatever.

Speaker 57 and you're a lead investigator you they should have replaced her immediately still

Speaker 20 he voted guilty but there were others three all told who couldn't overcome their doubts one of them was Bobby Santabria who spoke for the three dissenters there was not enough evidence for them to get past the reasonable doubt prosecutor Dan Rubinstein said in a way he understood the biggest weakness of the case in my opinion was that there was just no eyewitnesses that placed Mr.

Speaker 96 Jones with Ms. Bergfeld that night, and we really didn't know exactly how she was killed.

Speaker 105 And he conceded,

Speaker 57 the defense did an admirable job protecting Jones.

Speaker 96 I think the point that they were trying to make was a good one, which is it could be anyone.

Speaker 134 It could be somebody we never thought of.

Speaker 53 So the season slipped by, and now with the leaves gone and snow falling, a retrial.

Speaker 61 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 57 And with time and money tight, tight, all knew this would be Rubenstein's last shot at Jones. Another mistrial would be just as good as an acquittal.

Speaker 133 Do you solemnly swear?

Speaker 64 And so it all played out as before.

Speaker 131 You have a track record of being dishonest.

Speaker 28 Yes.

Speaker 42 The same witnesses.

Speaker 131 Did you kill Ms. Bergfeld?

Speaker 2 No, ma'am.

Speaker 40 The same testimony?

Speaker 135 I have never been able to run a dog on a trail that's a month old.

Speaker 81 The same alternate suspects.

Speaker 131 In your opinion, did the sheriff's office conduct an objective investigation? No.

Speaker 42 The same closing argument from the defense.

Speaker 94 This man is innocent and he stays that way unless these people can convince you otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt.

Speaker 93 But what was different this time

Speaker 93 was Rubenstein's closing argument.

Speaker 81 Taking the alternate suspect seriously,

Speaker 67 he went after each theory one by one

Speaker 5 with attitude.

Speaker 134 And to think that somebody who's so drunk that three different people have to cart them around, who's probably also on cocaine, is capable of doing this, carefully doing it, and then going back and cleaning it up carefully with a car fire that's specifically targeted to get the evidence, to tear pages out of a day planner.

Speaker 24 I mean, does this sound like George Coraluzzo at all?

Speaker 59 No.

Speaker 50 But would that make a difference to this new jury?

Speaker 41 Few thought so.

Speaker 24 And so, while deliberations went on from one day to the next, Paige's parents braced themselves.

Speaker 22 I think there's a reasonable chance it could be another mistrial. If it is a mistrial, I expect Jones will walk out a free man.

Speaker 71 And just as in the first trial, the jury deliberated for three days before sending a note to the judge.

Speaker 133 Please be seated.

Speaker 71 But this time, there was a verdict.

Speaker 133 We, the jury, find the defendant Lester Ralph Jones guilty of count one murder in the first degree.

Speaker 22 When the verdict came in, I think we were supposed to feel elated

Speaker 22 like the home team kicked the field goal with two seconds left and we just won and to be honest I didn't feel that

Speaker 22 there were no winners in this case none of this brings Paige back to us what about you

Speaker 1 this is about Paige

Speaker 77 This is about Paige who has been gone and will not be able to come back to her friends, her brother, her parents, her kids.

Speaker 12 Who now live far away in Pennsylvania, as they have since Paige first vanished.

Speaker 93 The Bergfelds tried to get custody, but a judge ruled against them and in favor of the father, Rob Dixon.

Speaker 99 It's been the book of Job for you two.

Speaker 73 Just trying to get back to our normal lives, and we won't.

Speaker 77 We never will be what we were ten years ago. It's changed, I think, each of of us, but we're working at trying to get back to normal and or something like it.

Speaker 22 A big word that always hangs over the room is closure.

Speaker 22 And

Speaker 22 I'm not sure what that means.

Speaker 134 Paige Bergfeld was kidnapped.

Speaker 10 There were difficult moments for the Bergfelds during the murder trial.

Speaker 50 Like the first time they heard the frightened voicemail messages of their grandchildren.

Speaker 31 Bye, Mom. You said you would be back last night.

Speaker 15 You're not going to be back today.

Speaker 15 Bye.

Speaker 22 And I would tell you, that was a hard part.

Speaker 77 That was the hardest for me.

Speaker 22 There is almost a recognition that you're in trouble. Please don't be in trouble.
Please come home to us.

Speaker 53 And then there was the day planner when the sweet mundane details of Paige's life and those of her children were made real once more.

Speaker 53 The family nights, soccer games, the dance recitals and birthday parties and library visits.

Speaker 5 They were all there.

Speaker 49 The precious, chaotic rhythms of a family that once was.

Speaker 52 Proof that there was a time when all was as it should be.

Speaker 1 Proof also, that time is gone forever.

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